The British are coming. But then, so are the Germans and the Swedes. With Laker Airways starting service to London two months ago, British travelers have become the largest group of Europeans flying into Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, aviation officials said on Monday. In that period, the carrier has delivered more than 9,500 British tourists, narrowly surpassing the number of Germans, who have been streaming steadily to Florida since the late 1980s. But the number of Europeans overall coming to Fort Lauderdale is hitting a record high.

A Laker Airways Boeing 727 flying from Freeport, Bahamas, to Pittsburgh made an unscheduled landing Sunday at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport after a cockpit indicator light suggested potential hydraulic problems. Laker Airways chief pilot Jim Phinney said the plane turned around about 90 miles north of Freeport after taking off about 10 a.m. Sunday. Phinney said that although the pilot lost no control, the aircraft was diverted to Laker's Fort Lauderdale maintenance hub as a precaution.

Sir Freddie Laker confesses that he is losing sleep at night, fussing over an airline aimed at gamblers. "I keep thinking of all the problems and what I haven`t done," said the illustrious British entrepreneur. "I must be crazy, mustn`t I?" Yet, Laker, 69, the man who pioneered cut-rate fares to Europe in the 1970s, said Laker Airways Bahamas Limited is no gamble. Starting on Monday, the company will provide 17 weekly charter flights between Fort Lauderdale and the Princess Resort & Casino in Freeport.

A Tampa man was arrested on Sunday on charges of making a bomb threat when he joked to a colleague on a two-way radio that a plane was going to explode over the Atlantic, police said. Making a bomb threat is a felony. Thomas Day, 48, a construction worker with Morrow Equipment was "making jokes about a bomb on a plane" when his conversation was overheard on another frequency about 9:30 a.m., police said. Officials assumed Day was talking about Laker Airways flight 9823, which had recently departed for Madrid, Spain.

A Tampa man was arrested on Sunday on charges of making a bomb threat when he joked to a colleague on a two-way radio that a plane was going to explode over the Atlantic, police said. Making a bomb threat is a felony. Thomas Day, 48, a construction worker with Morrow Equipment was "making jokes about a bomb on a plane" when his conversation was overheard on another frequency about 9:30 a.m., police said. Officials assumed Day was talking about Laker Airways flight 9823, which had recently departed for Madrid, Spain.

A Laker Airways Boeing 727 flying from Freeport, Bahamas, to Pittsburgh made an unscheduled landing Sunday at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport after a cockpit indicator light suggested potential hydraulic problems. Laker Airways chief pilot Jim Phinney said the plane turned around about 90 miles north of Freeport after taking off about 10 a.m. Sunday. Phinney said that although the pilot lost no control, the aircraft was diverted to Laker's Fort Lauderdale maintenance hub as a precaution.

When Lisa Novack arranged to fly from Fort Lauderdale to Freeport on Monday, she didn`t expect to walk into a party. But that is just what she and 103 other passengers did, as British entrepreneur Sir Freddie Laker celebrated the start-up of Laker Airways Bahamas Limited, his new charter airline. "It`s certainly a wonderful sendo-ff," said Novack, 24, of Beachwood, Ohio. "We were a little taken aback." Instead of waiting at a gate, passengers were invited into a private room filled with tables, flowers and balloons at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.

By DOREEN HEMLOCK and KATHERINE HUTT Business Writers, January 14, 1998

Stymied by tough competition in the trans-Atlantic market, Fort Lauderdale-based Laker Airways will suspend scheduled service between London and South Florida starting Thursday. Airline executives said on Tuesday they'll decide later this month whether to resume service or fly to other U.S. or South American cities, among other options. Laker Airways has been flying from London twice a week to Fort Lauderdale and twice a week to Miami, offering Regency Service _ with leather seats, unlimited free drinks, china place-settings and other amenities.

Sir Freddie Laker, the British entrepreneur who introduced cheap trans- Atlantic flights in the 1970s, is starting a new airline that will begin to ferry gamblers and tourists to Freeport, Grand Bahama Island, in May. Laker Airways (Bahamas) Limited, a charter airline with two 727 jets, will feed the Princess Resort & Casino in Freeport with twice-daily flights from Fort Lauderdale, a weekly flight from West Palm Beach and five weekly from Orlando. Laker will fly twice a week from five other cities: Nashville, Raleigh/ Durham, Richmond, Cleveland and Cincinnati.

By DOREEN HEMLOCK and KATHERINE HUTT Business Writers, January 14, 1998

Stymied by tough competition in the trans-Atlantic market, Fort Lauderdale-based Laker Airways will suspend scheduled service between London and South Florida starting Thursday. Airline executives said on Tuesday they'll decide later this month whether to resume service or fly to other U.S. or South American cities, among other options. Laker Airways has been flying from London twice a week to Fort Lauderdale and twice a week to Miami, offering Regency Service _ with leather seats, unlimited free drinks, china place-settings and other amenities.

The Index of Leading Economic Indicators, a key gauge of future economic activity, posted its sixth straight monthly gain in October, The Conference Board reported. "This projects a pretty healthy economy going into the start of next year," said Gary Thayer, senior economist at A.G. Edwards & Sons. The index's steady increase this year is a sign economic growth faces no imminent halt, despite economic turmoil in Asia that has led to volatility on Wall Street. Holiday sales will offer further signs of the economy's pace at the start of the new year, and few economists expect sales to fall as personal incomes continue their climb.

The Scots are on the march, out of Dade County to a Broward County park on Peters Road. The 14th Annual Southeast Florida Scottish Festival and Games debuts today in Broward at Plantation Heritage Park with ethnic food, music, merchandise and sports. For more than a decade, the event was held at Crandon Gardens on Key Biscayne. The loss of the park's trees in 1992 to Hurricane Andrew and the shift of South Florida Scots to Broward and Palm Beach prompted the festival's move north, said Nigel MacDonald, president of the Scottish American Society of South Florida Inc. "Our central population moved north," said MacDonald, who lives in Miami Shores.

The British are coming. But then, so are the Germans and the Swedes. With Laker Airways starting service to London two months ago, British travelers have become the largest group of Europeans flying into Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, aviation officials said on Monday. In that period, the carrier has delivered more than 9,500 British tourists, narrowly surpassing the number of Germans, who have been streaming steadily to Florida since the late 1980s. But the number of Europeans overall coming to Fort Lauderdale is hitting a record high.

It was supposed to be Sir Freddie Laker's big comeback onto the trans-Atlantic flight scene. Instead, Friday night's Flight 612 to London, the inaugural flight from Fort Lauderdale, was aborted, rescheduled to Saturday, and then delayed again until Monday. Laker, who founded Laker Airways, celebrated his airline's start-up at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport with a celebrity send-off Friday night. Hours later, he was apologizing to disembarking passengers and trying to figure out why the airplane malfunctioned.

A Laker Airways plane on its inaugural flight to London got a huge sendoff from Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport on Friday, but an engine problem forced the plane to return nearly an hour into the flight. "We got some warning lights. It was a precautionary measure," pilot Terry Fensome said. But the problem turned out to be a little more serious. Officials were unable to repair the engine in time for a second takeoff on Friday night. The flight to London's Gatwick airport is scheduled to take off today.

It was supposed to be Sir Freddie Laker's big comeback onto the trans-Atlantic flight scene. Instead, Friday night's Flight 612 to London, the inaugural flight from Fort Lauderdale, was aborted, rescheduled to Saturday, and then delayed again until Monday. Laker, who founded Laker Airways, celebrated his airline's start-up at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport with a celebrity send-off Friday night. Hours later, he was apologizing to disembarking passengers and trying to figure out why the airplane malfunctioned.

Sir Freddie Laker said Thursday he will bring more than 1 million new British tourists to Florida when his new airline begins nonstop service to the state next spring, with Fort Lauderdale as one of its two U.S. gateways. Laker, best known for his low-fare, low-frill SkyTrain air service in the 1970s, told Broward County tourism leaders his new Laker Airways will offer passengers good food, entertainment and lots of comfort at competitive prices. Laker is starting a new transatlantic carrier at a time when Florida's international tourism numbers are still feeling pinched from past negative publicity and poor economies overseas.

The grounding of ValuJet flights has not stalled the flow of passengers through Broward's busy international airport. Although the Atlanta start-up airline had played a major role in airport traffic in the past year, steady growth in air service at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport has more than made up for losses stemming from ValuJet's decline, airport managers said this week. Two weeks ago, ValuJet was forced to cancel all of its flights in the wake of a continuing federal safety investigation following the fatal crash of Flight 592 in South Florida.

Sir Freddie Laker said Thursday he will bring more than 1 million new British tourists to Florida when his new airline begins nonstop service to the state next spring, with Fort Lauderdale as one of its two U.S. gateways. Laker, best known for his low-fare, low-frill SkyTrain air service in the 1970s, told Broward County tourism leaders his new Laker Airways will offer passengers good food, entertainment and lots of comfort at competitive prices. Laker is starting a new transatlantic carrier at a time when Florida's international tourism numbers are still feeling pinched from past negative publicity and poor economies overseas.